have a little faith

Faith. It’s when we believe and trust that positive outcomes will happen. If we don’t have faith, we don’t have hope.

Sometimes I need to have a little faith.

My son was in an auto accident. No one was hurt. It wasn’t my son’s fault. But it was my vehicle and it’s never a pleasant thing to hear that your car, which you weren’t even driving, was in an accident. And no matter who caused the accident, it’s still an inconvenience to have to take the vehicle, assuming it’s even drivable, to a body shop for an estimate, deal with the insurance agency, file a claim, hope that the other party’s story corroborates with yours or the claim may not be paid at all, and if you get the repairs done, be without that vehicle for up to a week or more, or if you don’t, live with an ugly gash in the side of your car forever.

This time we were lucky. This time the person whose huge, new Dodge Ram pickup hit our not-such-a-slouch-either SUV was woman enough to admit fault and deal with the consequences in the proper manner. Why is that surprising? Well, we’ve had several occurrences where the other party didn’t have insurance, wasn’t even a legal driver, and/or caused a hit-and-run accident, without leaving as much as a note on our damaged vehicle. Those times, you’re stuck. There’s nothing you can do unless you want to pay out of pocket for the repairs or file a claim against your own policy. Usually, it’s not even worth the trouble because the costs are exorbitant even going through the insurance, since your rates will increase or you have a deductible that still means a good chunk of money will come from you before the balance of the costs are covered by the agency.

So if you’re going to be in an accident, you hope it’s the other person’s fault and he or she admits to it and that person has an up-to-date policy with a reliable insurance company that pays for the repairs. I should have been happy that this accident ticked off all those boxes, but, being me, I wasn’t. When my son told me what happened, I wasn’t level-headed, calm, and adult about it. I got angry, I became accusatory, and I was upset because this vehicle is supposed to be mine to drive and not my son’s (he lost his own car in an accident a year ago and never replaced it), and I knew that I would be the one who would have to deal with the repercussions, not my son, not my husband, but I. And I was right.

But I was also wrong, because I thought it would be a horrible ordeal that would be time consuming, emotional, and dreadful, and it really wasn’t. Yes, I had to make the appointment for the estimate and take the vehicle in on a Saturday morning while my son lollygagged in bed, and, yes, I had to make the call to the insurance agency and file the claim. And yes, I will have to field the calls from the body shop (who just now rang, by the way) and listen to service reps who try to convince me to get the repairs done and not pocket the check, but it’s nearly over. (It will be when the check in my name arrives in the mail–and the phone calls stop.)

So all in all, as far as auto accidents go, this one was fairly simple. I’ve got to remember all things do not have to be incidences of Sturm und Drang. Yeah, I’ve got to have a little faith.